Giving $ to Karl Rove: A terrible return-on-investment

Fiscal conservatives, listen up: If you invested money in a political campaign in this cycle, one of the WORST people to give it to was Karl Rove. His return-on-investment — i.e. achieving the desired electoral result: 1 percent.

One. Percent. ….of the $103 miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllion Rove’s American Crossroads super PAC rained on the various campaigns it supported and opposed, according to
the nonpartisan money-and-politics analysts at the Sunlight Foundation.

No wonder the dude was trying to deny reality on Fox News on Election Night. With that kind of ROI, folks who gave to Rove’s American Crossroads may start calling him the same thing former Prez George W. Bush did: “Turd-Blossom.”

Sunlight calculated its batting averages this way: A group’s winning percentage “reflects how much of their money went to support candidates who won and to oppose candidates who lost in the general election campaign.”

So by that measure the best ROI was the Service Employees International Union. The union scored wins on 84 percent of $15 million it spent.

This is going to be earth-shattering for conservatives. Many trusted Rove. As California Republican strategist Tom Ross told us back in April, donors would rather invest in a super PAC run by Rove because “They trust a Karl Rove to make the right decisions for them more than they might someone else.”

But T.B. Rove wasn’t the worst ROI. That dubious title belongs to the National Rifle Association. Their ROI: Zero. OK, it was .81. Virtual bupkis for the $10 million it spent.

Another big loser: The conservative-friendly U.S. Chamber of Commerce. ROI was 6.9 percent of $32 milllllllllllllllllllllllllllllliion spent.

Or, as Donald Trump tweeted: “Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million this cycle. Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money.”

What did Rove do with all that cash? For starters he spent $127 million on more than 82,000 TV ads for Mitt Romney, according to Kantar Media’s CMAG, which tracks advertising.

Rove says that President Obama won because he was “suppressing the vote” — i.e. Romney’s vote — with negative ads. Again, Karl seems to be working with a set of fact not based in this universe.

According to this, Obama spent $396 million of Obama’s ads, 85 percent were negative. Romney spent $472 million on ads, 91 percent of were negative.

It is time for Rove to quit — while he’s behind. Then again, he may have lost, he got paid. But because of the lack of transparency of the process, we may never know HOW MUCH Rove pocketed while his clients lost.